


survivor's guilt

by KatRoma



Series: of pinwheels and paper daffodils [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Female Uchiha Sasuke, Gen, POV Multiple, Team Dynamics, Uchiha Sasuke-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatRoma/pseuds/KatRoma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Seven comes into itself in the Wave Country.</p>
            </blockquote>





	survivor's guilt

**Author's Note:**

> This fills the prompt of "Sasuke from someone else's POV" by using the whole team in a revolving fashion.

**i.**

This is Uchiha Sasuke.

She’s twelve-years-old, tall for her age with a thin body that makes her look closer to thirteen or fourteen, something her t-shirts and shorts don’t help. Her hair is black, and straight, twisted back into a ponytail above the tie of her forehead protector with a paper flower tucked into the elastic, bangs falling over her face. There’s a mark on her shoulder, always half hidden by her shirts, like someone took a calligraphy brush, and drew it on with black ink. With her dark blue eyes, and pale skin, she looks more like a painted doll than a girl. Her back is straight, her expression solidly disinterested, and sometimes the accent of somewhere far away curves around the softer sounds of her words.

Five years ago, she was everything but this. She’d been sweet, if not a little sad, and looked a bit like a stick figure, dwarfed by boys’ clothes several sizes too large. Now she might still be made of sharpness and angles, but there’s no awkwardness in her edges anymore. Her hair was messy, hiding her face to make her seem smaller, and she would’ve slouched if she hadn’t had perfect posture trained into her. Though the top student of her class, kunoichi studies were lost on her. That Sasuke wouldn’t have even known how to make an origami heart, let alone a daffodil. This Sasuke looks like she not only understood those lessons, but personified them.

Long before their first C-ranked mission as Team Seven, Sakura decides she hates Uchiha Sasuke with everything she has. The day Sakura became serious in her shinobi studies was the day Etsuko-sensei walked into lecture class, teary and subdued, to inform all her students that “in the light of last night’s tragedy,” Uchiha Itachi stole away his little sister. The day Sasuke was officially declared dead, Sakura cried so hard her eyes veined red. The day the rumors started that her old friend returned, she hadn’t believed them, because no one could give her a definite answer if they were true, and more importantly, no one could give her an address. Besides, she’d reasoned at the time, if Sasuke were back, then she’d find Sakura within days.

But Sasuke never came.

Seeing her again should have been exciting, and amazing, but instead Sakura feels like she’s looking at an imposter. The girl’s already openly admitted to coming from a different a village, so it isn’t too farfetched. How could anyone think this is the same person who couldn’t understand the concept of the language of fans, or how to create a message through flowers? Sakura’s understanding of both are still shaky, even with Ino’s help, because it isn’t something people are miraculously good at. If Sasuke’s suddenly a mathematical genius, too, then Sakura’s going to the Hokage, and proclaiming her teammate a fake.

The C-rank mission, which they were only able to get because of Sasuke, is something Sakura was hoping could act as a distraction, but Tazuna is annoying, and drunk, and smells like fish kept too long out in the sun. “You aren’t acting so awed at the outside world,” he says to Sasuke, quirking a thick, grey eyebrow, and taking a twig of his sake. “Why’s that, kid?”

Sakura wouldn’t consider trying to get Naruto’s hyperactivity under control acting awed, but that could just be the sake affecting the man’s perception. Like a good kunoichi, she keeps quiet and alert for danger instead, but annoyance draws her eye to Sasuke anyway. “They’re just trees,” she says, hair swinging, and absorbing light. “We have them inside the walls, too.”

It’s an answer bordering on rude. Kakashi-sensei says, “This isn’t Sasuke’s first time outside,” without specifying how she’s been a gennin longer than they have.

“Yeah,” Naruto says, eyes narrowed into a glare reserved for her. “That’s because she’s not from Konoha.”

Her expression and posture don’t change, but her voice is cold when she says, “I’m a Uchiha, _Uzumaki_. My heritage’s of Konoha more than yours is.”

Before Sakura can ask what she means, or anyone else can react, the puddle beside Kakashi-sensei’s feet explodes. Then there’re strings wrapped around him, pulling, and then, that easily, he dies in a mess of blood and skin and bones.

There’s fear, huge and overbearing, but the Academy lessons kick in, and Sakura jumps in front of Tazuna-san to protect him, kunai at the ready. The enemy-nin, though, go for Naruto, one on either side, and the man on the right says, “Two down.” It’s Sakura’s first mission, and she’s going to die, but twenty percent of gennin do on their first job outside the walls. She just never thought she’d be one of them.

“Don’t,” Sasuke says as both enemy-nin raise their weapons, and Sakura thinks it’s pointless until she sees the girl’s eyes shining red.

The one on the left starts backing away, saying how he’ll “Get him this time!” while the other loses thread of the fight long enough for Naruto to start moving. He gets away, creating clones as he does so, and they’re all destroyed in a burst of shuriken from the enemy-nin’s arm brace. Sakura throws her kunai at the chain released wildly by the one trapped in the genjutsu, still in too deep to realize his partner is in trouble. Suddenly, she’s acutely aware of her own uselessness, and thinks her newfound hatred of Sasuke might come from something deeper than dislike over the girl’s change.

Even with the clones destroyed, the enemy-nin has no opportunity to attack. Sasuke has what looks like white pinwheel tops twirling around her body, and with a movement of her hand, they fly forward. The enemy-nin doesn’t stand a chance when the pinwheels connect, cutting him to shreds, with a force strong to knock him to the ground. When the assault’s over, the pinwheels unfurl, and collapse back into sheets of paper around the body. Blood’s splattered across them like red paint, dripping into pattern from their former shapes. Sakura feels sick just looking at them.

“I can’t _believe_ you,” Sasuke says suddenly, whirling around. Sakura follows her line of sight, and finds Kakashi-sensei casually standing against a tree, the enemy-nin earlier trapped in a genjutsu wrapped in his own chains. “If I hadn’t had my Sharingan activated, I really wouldn’t thought you were dead!”

Naruto’s mouth drops open, and Sasuke’s mask of casual disinterest is cracked, leaving her shaking with her fists clenched, glaring at Kakashi-sensei with blue eyes Sakura suddenly doesn’t remember her having. “Wait,” Naruto says. “How _are_ you alive? We watched you die.”

It doesn’t take being told for Sakura to figure it out herself, because where Kakashi-sensei was lying dead only moments is now covered in bits of wood. “Kawarimi no Jutsu,” she says, and Naruto’s mouth presses into a line. “But why?”

“I wanted to know who their target was,” Kakashi-sensei says, walking past them to the second enemy-nin. He pats Sasuke’s head as he does, and kneels in the dirt, fingers to the man’s neck. “Well, he’s alive. Good job, Sakura. Naruto, good recovery.”

As Kakashi-sensei drags the man over to his partner, Sasuke says, “You could have shown up a little earlier.”

“You wowed everyone into not noticing me,” he says, back turned as he crouches down in front of the bound enemy-nin. Now that Sakura gets a good look at their forehead protectors, she sees scratched in lines, the symbol of Kirigakure. “Well, they’re genuine Kiri missing-nin.”

Some tension Sakura hadn’t realized Sasuke had leaves her shoulders, and her expression return to it’s usual disinterest. “What was that?” Naruto says, looking up at her with eyes wide, and Sakura never though she’d be annoyed his attention were focused on someone other than her.

Then the Kiri-nin wakes from whatever illusion Sasuke caught him in as the other continues to bleed, and jealousy can wait for another day.

 

 

The Demon Brothers had recognized the Sharingan from rumors, but Zabuza, the other missing-nin from Kiri, has a different reaction to the sight of her.  Even without her eyes turned red and black, she’s recognizable; Sakura thinks it’s because when she’s angry, her disinterest shifts into a look that could cut glass.  

“You’ve grown, Harbinger,” he says with one glance at her. “I heard you’d defected. Did you know there’s a bounty on her to turn her in alive, Kakashi? The less injured, the better the pay.”

Kakashi-sensei holds out his hand in front of her, as a shield or a deterrent, it’s difficult to tell to difference. “Sasuke’s a kunoichi of Konoha,” he says, which is a phrase Sakura’s heard too often to be normal in these past few weeks. She doesn’t know how this missing-nin recognized Sasuke, or what he called her means, and doesn’t want to find out. “I’m your opponent for this fight.”

With a slight grin, Zabuza says, “Kisame of Kirigakure couldn’t beat me. Don’t think you can, either, just because you made it into the Bingo Book.”

Something passes over Sasuke’s face, uncertain and maybe even a little sad, and for a moment, she looks like Sakura’s friend again. Then it’s gone, and she’s back to an angry painted doll. “Kakashi-sensei,” she says, and he answers, “Complete the mission.”

The fight begins, large and brutal, becoming the sort Sakura had always learned about. It’s here, in front of her, and the best she can do is wait. Kakashi-sensei can win, she tells herself, but it isn’t long before he trapped, calling for them to run. Logic, and every test she’d ever taken, nearly forces her to listen because shinobi always follow orders.

But then Sasuke completes a series of seals, creating a fire brighter than the end of the Academy year bonfires. The clone puts it out almost as quickly with a water jutsu, but it leaves a cloud of smoke that burns Sakura’s lungs. Sasuke leaps into it without regard, though there’s no chance she can see. When it clears, she’s on the lake, but the clone’s there, left for Sakura and Naruto to defeat on their own.

Sakura looks to Naruto, who nods once. Then come their clones, Academy level and jounin combined, and though she’s helping, the gap is skill is just as obvious. Zabuza’s clone beats her back, leaving her battered within minutes, and the first time she hits the ground, she catches sight of Kakashi-sensei blocking Zabuza’s sword with wrist. His arm’s around Sasuke’s waist, supporting her.

Favoritism at its finest, Sakura thinks, and drives a kunai into the clone’s calf.

 

 

 

**ii.**

Hiromaru Kaito described Sasuke’s taijutsu once as “dancing,” but Kakashi never understood what he meant until the confrontation with Zabuza. When gennin fight, there’s usually an awkwardness about their movement; hers is less dancing, and more skulking around like a cat, but there’s a level of control not normally seen at her age. Watching Sasuke fight isn’t like watching a gennin fight. It’s like watching her brother, mixed with something entirely new.

Unfortunately for her, Zabuza knew not just her, but her style, and though she was able to break the water prison, she was injured in the process. Now she has an injury across her side, Kakashi’s chakra is burnt out, and they’re both angry with each other.

After setting Naruto and Sakura up for some training in chakra control, Kakashi meets a very annoyed Sasuke back to the house for a discussion just the two of them. “Sasuke,” he says, “why did you completely disregard every principle of teamwork _twice_? From what I’ve heard, you used to be pretty good at it.”

It’s not difficult to understand what happened to her. She’d already forcibly killed her brother, which, even without the captive bonding no one’s tried to help her reverse, would’ve been traumatic enough to leave scars. Watching her whole team die hadn’t made healing any easier. “Who was I supposed to work with?” she answers, eyes hard. “They hate me, and Naruto froze up, and you were pretending to be dead. Then you were trapped, and I was the only one skilled enough to do something about it.”

In the time Kakashi worked with Itachi, he learned a little about her, but not enough to judge was what she was her personality of when she was younger. What Kakashi does know, from the year and a half he’s looked out for her, is that she’s not a particularly happy kid. There’s a darkness in her from her time in Ame, but it lessened for the year she spent with Team Ten. Now it’s back, worse, and sometimes he thinks about those black flames that burned for seven days, and still wonders how she managed to active the Mangekyo Sharingan with chakra reverses as low as she has.

“That was just meant to hold me, not kill me,” he tells her. “I could’ve handled Zabuza on my own if you’d helped them take out the clone. And they don’t hate you. The three of you just aren’t making the effort to get along.”

“No, they do,” she says, “and they aren’t shy about it. Sakura doesn’t like that I’m not who she remembers, and Naruto doesn’t like that I’m a girl who can beat him in a fight. You heard him. I’m not from Konoha.”

When Sasuke’s upset, the accent she developed in Amegakure strengthens, not helping her argument. She moves like Itachi, but she’s nothing like him; he was calm, more modest than anyone expected, and less unpredictable in personality, until the stress became too much, and his mind broke under the pressure. Sasuke’s angry by nature, has an arrogance bordering on a superiority complex, and it’s just as likely that she’ll under-react to something as she’ll overreact.

If anything, she’s more like Kakashi when he was younger than her own brother.

She looks down, away, and she disappears behind her hair, down for once. “Sakura was your friend,” he says. “You’re still Sasuke. I’m sure you can work out something. Naruto’s gone without friends for a long time. He’s annoying now, but he won’t be forever. You just have to make the effort.”

Itachi, unsurprisingly, told her a large number of Konoha’s secrets, but Kakashi hadn’t expected her to turn to him after the team dispersed the first day to ask if Naruto was really a Jinchuriki. For all the facts she knows, and all the inferences she can make, there’s a lot she doesn’t understand. Her teammates have their lesson. This is hers.

“Why should I?” she says, quieter now, more sullen. “So they can get killed protecting me, too?”

Finally, she looks up, but her glare is weaker. “Sasuke,” he says, “that wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was. He was coming after me, and I couldn’t do anything fast enough.”

It’s been hard convincing her to accept the reality of the situation, but then again, it always it. Survivor’s guilt is a parasite already sticking to her back, and everyone in his generation knows what it feels like, too. “You didn’t ask for the cursed seal,” he says. “No one’s going to hold an eleven—twelve-year-old accountable for something an S-class missing-nin does.”

For a moment, he’s surprised when she suddenly hugs him, skinny arms circling around his middle, before he remembers that if there’s one positive thing that can be said about Uchiha Itachi, it’s that he really did love his little sister. She’s probably used to more affection than she’s been getting. When she doesn’t say anything, Kakashi hugs her, too, cautiously, and adds, “Will you at least try?”

Then she nods, slight but still noticeable against his chest, face hidden. For the first time, he wonders if this is how Minato felt with him.

 

 

 

**iii.**

As Sakura isn’t injured and managed to walk up her tree already, she’s the one guarding Tazuna. Naruto assumed this meant he would alone until he learned how to do it himself, and startles when Sasuke’s voice says from behind him, “I could help, if you want.”

She’s leaning against a tree, arms crossed. “I don’t need help,” he says, standing. “I can do this on my own. Go find someone else to tell you how smart you are.”

“My self-confidence isn’t low enough that I need anyone to tell me that,” she says, moving away from the tree and coming over to him. “I needed a lot of help with this when I was younger. Come on, I’ll show you how what my brother did with me.”

Then she jumps, catching the trunk with her hand pressed flat, before positioning herself on her feet, facing towards him. She’s right above his head, and he never noticed before that her eyes are blue, not black. “Grab my hands,” she says, dangling her arms, “and put your feet to the tree. If you accidentally channel enough chakra to propel you off, I’ll be able to hold you steady until you stabilize. Same with if you apply too little. I can catch you as you fall, giving you time to apply more.”

It sounds logical, but Sasuke’s not known for her teamwork, and even if she were, she’s one strong gust of wind away from breaking apart. “You’ll drop me,” he says.

“Just because I’m pretty doesn’t mean I’m weak,” she says. “Now hurry up. I can see in the dark, but you can’t.”

Not even Ino, the girl everyone was in love with, ever said out loud she thought she was pretty. “You’re really full of yourself, you know that?” he says, and takes her hands. If it means learning this by the time Zabuza is back, he’s willing to bite his pride.

“It’s not that,” she says as he takes his first step. “I just think modesty is so self-serving. I know I’m good, there’s no point in belittling myself in order to hear someone else say it.”

He feels himself slipping, losing his grip on the trunk, but her hands around his tighten, holding him place as his feet slip right off. “There has to be something you’re bad at,” he says, and though it’s a struggle, he gets himself back into position, and sticks.

As they start up again, she answers, “I didn’t have a conventional education, so there are entire areas of civilian subjects I just don’t know. The first time I had to pay rent, I had to get Kakashi-sensei to talk me through how to do it. You’re starting to use too much, lessen.”

The bark stops breaking under his feet. “How long’ve you known him?”

“About a year and a half.”

“So that’s why you ran off when he was in trouble?”

He thinks about Iruka in the woods, shuriken in his stomach with his blood across the ground. Suddenly, yesterday doesn’t seem as bad as it did earlier, because if it were Iruka in that position, he would’ve done the same thing. “Something like that,” she says, and nods the a branch diagonal from them. “We’re stopping there.”

Though the branch isn’t very big, it’s wide, and supports both of them without bending. “Are your arms tired?”

Shaking her head, she says, “I can’t be your crutch the whole way up. You’re doing the rest on your own. But if you start falling, I’m at an angle where I catch you. Landing on your back from his height would be bad. But take a break first. Even your chakra needs one occasionally.”

Trees here aren’t as big as they are back home, but they’re almost as tall. Sunset’s starting, lighting the sky in a bright orange, and he asks, “What did you mean the other day? About being ‘of Konoha’ more than me or whatever?”

“Don’t you know anything?” she says, rolling her eyes. “The Uchiha family is one of the two clans that founded Konoha, and I’m the direct line. My father, and then my brother, were clan heads, even if Itachi was estranged. Technically I’ll be now, since there’s no one left.”

“How come I never learned that in history?”

With a dry smile, she says, “That’s a long, complicated political story I’m not getting into. Now get moving, I expect progress by the time the sun sets.”

By nightfall, Naruto’s not perfect but he’s better, and Sasuke supports him the whole back to the house.

 

 

When Naruto enters the ice prison, he finds Sasuke more put together than anyone in her position has the right being. The tie on her forehead protector came undone, leaving it on the floor, with her hair fallen out of its elastic. Other than that, she’s unharmed, and considering the speed of the needles, she should look like a pincushion by now.

He gets hit with a few almost instantly, painfully burrowing through his clothes and into his skin, but he’s not the target. “Naruto, on the ground,” Sasuke says quietly, weaving between the needles, and adds, louder, “Leave him out of this. I’m your opponent.”

Though he wants to remind her that he’s not dead weight, he’s her teammate, Naruto knows he doesn’t want to get caught up in whatever she’s planning, and hits the ground. The fire comes instantly, burning every senbon needle coming towards her, followed by a whirlwind of paper pinwheel tops. Their masked opponent falls right out of the mirror, falling heavily onto the ground, and Sasuke releases another round as he pulls himself up.

Except, they’re different this time, smaller and faster, and explode on impact with his body. The mask cracks, falling to the floor, revealing the boy Naruto spoke with last afternoon, and he doesn’t have to tell Sasuke to stop because she’s already done so on her own.

It’s not willingly, though; she’s standing in the middle of the prison shaking like she’s trapped in an illusion. Black lines spread from the ink mark on her neck, and her Sharingan shifts into a different pattern. He takes closer, afraid to touch her, but thinking it’s better if they leave. During the fight with the Demon Brothers, Sasuke stopped them from killing him, so it’s only fair he returns the favor.

Right as he touches her arm, though, the needles are back, faster than he can register, and he catches her before she can hit the ground. And she might not’ve been the best person in the world, but she’s still his teammate, and not all that bad, and more importantly, not breathing.

Without realizing it, he releases the Kyuubi’s chakra, and everything goes wrong from there.

 

 

**iv.**

There’s not much blood, even once the few needles that found their way in Sasuke’s body are removed. When she wakes, Sakura sobs into her shoulder, and after a moment, Sasuke reaches up and rubs her back, assuring her teammate that she’s all right. Earlier, Kakashi killed Haku with a Chidori through the chest, and saw Rin, shaking and pale and the _could have been_ that never was. According to Naruto, Sasuke stopped moving after she used explosive tags. Autopsy reports confirmed Team Ten died in an explosion.

Agreeing to take on Sasuke as his student was a bad idea, Kakashi decides. There’s nothing fun about looking at a little girl, and seeing himself instead.

The villagers across the bridge celebrate their hard won victory, uncaring that all this wood and stone is going to be soaked with blood forever no matter what they do. Sakura suddenly laughs, high and girlish, and moves so she stands at Sasuke’s side, sliding the other girl’s arm around her shoulders as a means of support. For all she’s been through, Sasuke’s still just a kid, and Sakura was her friend, once; the act of “making up” was far out of the realm of imagination.

“Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto says, coming up on his right, and watching the two girls, “before Sasuke got not-killed, the tattoo on her neck did something weird, and her Sharingan looked different.”

No, Kakashi thinks. It’s confined, properly confined. “The mark,” he says. “Did it spread?” Naruto nods, forehead growing lines. He’s holding his teammate’s forehead protector in his hand. “Sakura, Sasuke! Can you come over here?”

The two girls glance at each other, and Sasuke shrugs with her available shoulder before they join them. She has blood on the sleeve of her shirt and at her hairline, but where the needles punctured are marked by redness, not real injury. As wonderful as that seems, Haku purposely aimed for the same points he did with Zabuza, meant to paralyze for about a week, not kill. Someone in Amegakure is willing to pay money to have her back alive, and Kakashi doesn’t like what that might mean for her.

“What is it?” Sakura asks. “Are we going back?”

“In a minute,” he says. “Sasuke, I need to look at your seal.”

She blinks, slow and sluggish, and he sees the little sister Itachi used to talk about occasionally, when he complained about Shisui calling her a straw doll. With her hair a mess, and clothes torn, she certainly fits the part. “Why?” she says, but steps away from Sakura as directed, swaying slightly. The needles weren’t in long enough to fully paralyze her, but they did their damage. “Does fake dying break it or something?”

Both Sakura and Naruto back up, giving them some space, and Kakashi tugs at the collar of Sasuke’s shirt. “It’s still confined,” he says, feeling the relief set into his lungs, “but high stress must cause a reaction. Naruto, you said her eyes changed?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess they did.”

Her body tenses. When they reach Konoha, he’ll bring it to the Hokage, but for now, she’s injured, and he won’t push her more than he has to. “You’re going to be fine,” he says with a smile. “All you need is a good bowl of miso soup and some sleep.”

Though she doesn’t seem convinced, she lets Sakura resume her position. A moment later, Naruto takes a spot at the other side, and apparently all Team Seven needed was a good near death experience to increase camaraderie.

Midway to the house, Sasuke ends up on Kakashi’s back, breathing uneven, body limp, and he just hopes she isn’t sent to observation for this.

 

 

**v.**

In the time she thought Sasuke was dead, Sakura realized it’s not hate she feels, but a very deep hurt. Before Ino, Sasuke was her only friend, and discovering she’d been back for a year and a half without ever coming by was painful. The half-delusional comment of “I think making me forget you wasn’t on purpose” was unexpected, and explains both nothing and everything at once.

Somehow, that made it hurt both more and less. Either way, it’s easier to be around her, even if she does have eyes that aren’t grey, and knows how to weaponize origami.

Most of the time left in the Wave Country, she spends unconscious, and makes soft noises of distress in her sleep. After she begins walking around again, stumbling in a way she never did even as a kid, Kakashi-sensei says they’re finally ready to leave. Sakura wants to argue it’s too early, but she knows Sasuke won’t forgive her if she does.

There’s something different about Naruto, too, like seeing someone die, or at least thinking he did, flipped on a switch to calm him down. “Want to go to Ichiraku?” he asks, and for once, he’s addressing both of them. “I’ll help you with the bill, Sasuke-chan.”

She rolls her eyes. “Like you’re any better at math than I am,” she says, but doesn’t tell him no.

“I’ll go,” Sakura says. “Let me just go home to clean up first.”

Looking past Naruto’s shoulder, Sasuke says, “What about you, Kakashi-sensei? Want to join your little gennin for lunch?”

Sakura smiles at him, hopeful, and nudges Naruto so he does the same. For Sasuke, her smirk and raised eyebrow have a different effect with the same result. “I suppose I might have some time in my busy schedule,” he says, unenthusiastic. “What time?”

“Half an hour after we arrive,” she answers. “We never take that long to get ready.”

It seems like it’s cutting it close, but still, the time is manageable. Once Kakashi-sensei drifts too far in front of the three of them, Sasuke takes them by their sleeves, and whispers, “Make it two and a half,” before leaving them behind to fall into step with him instead.

Their team’s still half-formed, not as tight as Ino says hers is, but Sakura thinks they might have a chance. Or at least they better, because next time, death won’t be just a temporary start, and she doesn’t know if she’d be able to stand that.

**Author's Note:**

> Remember, feel free to make suggestions!


End file.
